Owen Good

Rumor: Tomb Raider Reboot Art, Details Leaked

A site claiming to have a mole inside Eidos has published pictures purportedly of concept art and other collateral for a Tomb Raider reboot sequel, which figures to be both open-world and survival horror. It’s hardly shocking that Eidos – bought out by sequelmeisters Square Enix of course – would be planning another Tomb Raider.…

Trademark Troll Is At It Again [Update]

“Edge of Twilight” was announced more than two years ago. Just last month, Tim Langdell, notorious for claiming all uses of the word “edge,”in video games, filed a trademark application for exactly that name. In case you missed our discussion of Langdell’s history on May 30, he’s a onetime developer whose studio, Edge Games, was…

MLB Sim Picks Tuesday’s All-Star Winner

If you trust that MLB 09 The Show is the most realistic baseball simulation out there, feel free to bet on the National League in the All-Star Game. Unless you’re a future hall-of-famer, of course. Despite not taking a game off the American League since 1996, the Senior Circuit is expected to win 5-2, according…

Weekend Coupons: Value Adder

Hunting up weekend coupons is sometimes like looking for a snake. You don’t know that you’ve really got one until you wade into the tall grass and step on it. Let’s take a gander at some of this weekend’s deals: Hardware • Granted, this is a highly specific need, but the Cordless Mediaboard for PS3…

Study Examines Boom Blox for Benefits to Elderly Cognition

The National Science Foundation has given two universities a million dollars to study whether video games can improve thinking skills in the elderly. They’re using Boom Blox in the research. The grant to the universities – N.C. State and Georgia Tech – is part of the federal stimulus package and will span four years of…

360, PS3 Stand Better Chance of Seeing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Sequel

You’re more likely to see Xbox Live and PSN get a sequel of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars than a port of the original, says a Capcom producer. That’s because “the game is optimized for the Wii system, especially the graphics features,” Capcom’s Ryota Niitsuma told VideoGamer.com. “So if we were to port it…

Kotaku Originals: Comment is Free, but Stars are Earned

Not to brag, but the biggest change in your life this week had to be the new commenting structure, amirite? Starred or not, editing capabilities means no more humiliating typos or icky oops-was-that-my-out-loud-voice moments. After bestowing such begged-for powers, and others not even demanded, we did our damndest to serve up some stories worthy of…

Kotaku’s 2009 Summer Playing List

July is the time for snooty summer reading lists (not ours) and cocktail party chatter about reading them. The time when certain magazines and certain readers just lord their oh-so-fulfilling summer over your shiftless vacation. This hasn’t happened to you? Lucky. Tell you what. We’re going to put together our summer list, the games that…

Fourth of July Memorial

To: Luke From: Owen Re: Hey Americans, Why The BBQ? Why? Why? Why? This weekend, on my westward push I returned to Boulder for the first time since I was a newspaper reporter here, more than five years ago. Kotaku alumnus Adam Barenblat has put me up in his shanty apartment, where I managed to…

Week in Games: Bigs Week, Not a Big Week

Arcade-style baseball returns in The Bigs 2, highlighting a light beginning to the third quarter of 2009. Battlefield 1943 is available for download for both Xbox 360 and PS3 later in the week. While technically not a new release, the BioShock and Oblivion bundle is available for PC and 360 on Tuesday. CID The Dummy,…

Taste the Painbow, Belgian Rofl Honored in Gamertag Awards

Two weeks back on 1 vs. 100, The Ones were – consecutively, now – players with the gamertags BLooDYxGenocide and Banana Hammicks. Definitely memorable. In that spirit, The BBPS has created its inaugural gamertag awards. The awards span seven categories – including “Are You F#%KING High?” and “WTF Is So Cool About Ninjas?” – with…

At Long Last, an in-Game Twitter Client for Warcraft

Do you spend six hours a day playing Warcraft and another three hours Twittering pointlessly? Well now you can spend nine hours doing both! With TweetCraft, WoW gamers get a fully-featured Twitter client that, of course, allows you to send and receive in game – but also schedule your Tweet uploads, send in-game screenshots, and…

DS Plugin to Help Diabetic Kids Keep Consistent Readings

Pharma firm Bayer has created a DS plug-in built on the idea that diabetic kids typically lose track of no-fun things like glucose meters, but rarely lose fun things like gaming handhelds. No, the “Didget” isn’t a kind of Vitality Sensor; it goes into the DS/DS Lite’s Slot-2 and rewards players giving consistent readings with…

DLC Bound for Bound in Blood

Techland, the developer of Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, announced three pieces of DLC are on the way but few other details. Two will be multiplayer map, the third is for the singleplayer mode. No price points or release dates just yet. But the content will be available for all versions – PC, PS3…

inFamous Defeats Prototype in Cross-Dressing Playoff

In a recent Zero Punctuation review, Yahtzee couldn’t declare which blockbuster game “about super-powered assholes” was better, but would give the honor to the studio that best drew the rival game’s protagonist in drag. Astoundingly and to their everlasting credit, both Radical and Sucker Punch participated. First up, Radical sent in two submissions, but that…

Valve: PS3 Orange Box Players “Got the Stepchild Version”

In an interview with CVG, Valve’s Doug Lombardi says the experiences of putting Half-Life on PS2 and Orange Box on PS3 have put them off Sony development for the near future. He doesn’t complain about the differences in developing for one console, or PC, over another, but does say the PS3 versions of Valve products…

Bank Heist Causes Bank Run in EVE Onlne

Last month, the swindling of more than 200 billion ISK resulted in an actual run on a virtual bank in EVE Online. The best part? The loot was sold IRL – just $5,000. No, griefers from Something Awful are not claiming responsibility. Not that any of them would have the patience to play nice long…

Donkey Kong Easter Egg Discovered 26 Years Later

Last year, the coder who wrote the Atari 400 port of Donkey Kong revealed it had an Easter Egg but it’s “totally not worth it.” Someone has gone to the trouble of finding it. Donkey Kong for the Atari 400 and 800 was one of the best early ports of an arcade game, and its…

Weekend Coupons: Self-Evident Truths

We solemnly publish and declare that this weekend, all games are, and of right ought to be, free. Alas they are not. Scan the following for values to which you may pledge your fortunes. Software • Gears of War 2 is out there for $37 (free shipping eligible) via Amazon.com. That’s only $3 off the…

Kotaku Originals: Hot Fun in the Summertime

This will be the first time I’ve ever worked on Crecentral Time, as I’m in Colorado hanging with Kotaku alum Adam Barenblat for the weekend. It’s also a shortened two days thanks to July 4. But to everyone who might be kicking back, lighting up and/or grilling out this weekend – Francophones, we realize you’re…